The Doorman

For a moment, I was convinced by mum’s explanation that I was able to get a seat
on the train at Raffles Place station during rush hour was because most of the
Chinese migrant labour had returned to China for the New Year festivities.

But after some reflection, I can’t convince myself this can be true; surely most
of the people working in the offices blocks around the Shenton Way area would be
white-collared workers whom would be local?

Given that it’s been more than a decade since I’ve returned during CNY
(in the past years it had always been in December, as it was an easier to take
a long holiday that’s lined up with the Western holiday seasons), I had to give
it a benefit of a doubt.

I was on the train again today, and with mum in tow. We returned to the same
station at Raffles Place, as I had been a few days ago, returning from a
stroll through town. This time, it was past 6 and well within the confines of
the evening rush hour. We boarded the train, and unlike previous years, there’s
a notable difference between the volume of people – in the past, I had to
assiduously avoid 5-7pm period or risk being packed like sardines. This year,
I get to sit down, both times!

While narrowly missing a previous train from the one I boarded, one on-station
staff member helpfully mentioned, “the next train would be in 2 minutes.”
He meant it literally. The electronic display indicated that all successive trains
are arriving in 2 minute intervals. That’s what appears to be the real answer
to why I haven’t been crushed in the MRT this year.

I recalled coming across a headline that SMRT had been upgrading their signalling
systems a while ago… this time, before the crowds grow to an unwieldy number,
they get shuttled away in the 2-minute interval. Or that’s my theory anyway.
Whatever the trick is, it’s working, brilliantly.

As much as I try not to post technology-related posts on my personal blog, this
one possibly merits so, given it clarifies my thoughts and position on why I
generally don’t post anything at all on Facebook.

If you are in the the IT industry, then you should already know all about Facebook –
much has been said about this high-profile public company. In a nutshell,
they are an entity that makes profit out of people’s personal data. Now, there
isn’t anything inherently wrong about that, because users are the ones who are
willingly giving up this information, and the company so far had not
attempted to use this information in a morally repugnant, or distasteful way by
today’s social standards (although some of you might argue otherwise).

Technology as an enabler is a good thing, but I can’t help feeling using
your personal information in exchange for easy accessibility with friends and
family is like a Faustian pact. Tell me, how many of you know that, by posting
your picture up on Facebook, the company retains perpetual rights to your pictures? Even if you choose to delete your copy of
your picture, Facebook retains the legal rights to use that picture, for any purpose
forever.

Facebook is also at the forefront of facial recognition, where its
DeepFace technology boasts the capability of recognising a posted picture of you
with up to 97.53% accuracy.

Put that together and Facebook has the capability to track you directly, and
indirectly, though your friends’ postings, and build a dossier about you – one that knows
about you more than you do. I sure am not sure about the wisdom of allowing
so much information to be tracked about you involuntarily, and definitely a
little too 1984-esque
for my liking.

If there’s one thing as certain as death and taxes in the software industry,
it would be programming bugs. And if one’s information can be hacked from
Ashley Madison’s
data breach, it is only a matter of time that will happen to Facebook. Leaking
your private information, can ruin lives.

Why some people would risk sharing sensitive, private information, is ultimately
one’s personal choice, but I am not that totally comfortable that a corporation
has the capabilty to gather in-depth information about me, which I have no rights,
ownership and control over, which is indirectly acquired through the actions of
friends, rather than myself.

Friends, I’d prefer if you’d generally not post pictures with me in it,
or keep the tags out of pictures of me – my sense of paranoia
will thank you for it :)

It’s close to the end of the year again. I am off target from my goal of
attaining “6000 Punches, 6000 Kicks”, by a margin of 2000 thereabouts at
worse, or 1000 at best. It also comes down to the actual definition –
when I mean “Punch/Kick”, I meant a dedicated style of punch or kick.

If counting my combination of elbow attacks and varying punches, I should
have exceeded the 6000 mark. For kicks, it would likely be at around
the 4000 mark – it’s harder to perform kicks compared to punches, due
to the flexibility needed to perform kicks upwards of the waist (I’m kicking
into a sandbag). Certainly more exhausting too.

At least I’ve managed to get to the midway mark of my grand target of 10000.

In terms of feedback, the difference in the fluidity of movement can definitely
be felt. What used to feel like something that requires active thought is more
or less a reflex action now. The only thing that still requires attention is the
awareness of the movement of the bag, so as to land the strike as accurately as
possible – I’m not sure if that is possible to reflex away that too, but we’ll
see.

Where it used to bleed with striking bare knuckles, they are callused enough
now where strikes doesn’t cause any raw-ness anymore. And silly self-injuries
from bad positioning of the wrist while striking have reduced by a good margin.
I’ve realised from punching bags that it actually isn’t reasonable to angle the
wrists while driving the knuckles into your intended target, as some martial
arts would advocate in order to cause ‘more hurt’ to your opponent.

Personally, from experience, it’s counterproductive to make any movement from
your wrist while striking at high power/speed. As this is likely to cause injury
to yourself, or inflict less damage to your opponent. I’ll be quite happy if my
opponent takes a blunt, full-force impact from the flat of my fists, rather
than a watered-down punch from a couple of my knuckles, and risk breaking them
from bone-to-bone impact.

That’s the summary of what I’ve learnt the past year. I’ll leave the remainder
of my other observations in a future post.

The most important thing I learnt about workouts (and for most things in life), is
that it isn’t important how hard you go at it, but more on how to make it stick.
If statistics is a guide, only 30% of people who signs up for a gym membership will
make it past the first 3 months. 10% will remain after a year, and only 3% will keep
the habit up year after year. It is pretty dismal, but it does line up with my anecdotal
observations.

This is my 4th year working out in the gym, and it is only in the last couple of years
did it feel somewhat effortless and automatic. And it is only in the last year did I
acquire a dedicated approach to integrate workouts into my daily lifestyle.

As far as I know, it wasn’t grim determination that kept me there. Instead it was to
ignore all reasons and expectations that you have for wanting to go to the gym in the
first place. I know having sculptured body and a six-pack ab is a noble goal, but
you will most likely end up killing yourself at every single workout, trying
all manner of insane exercises prescribed by your fitness instructors (crossfit!),
from well-meaning friends, or the muscled gym rats whom you would believe to have
a clue about fitness.

And only to give up after 12 weeks, where after each workout, the only thing you
got was feeling sore and miserable. Eventually you’ll just give up from feeling
depressed and getting no results at all.

It’s not that workouts don’t work, but short of being genetically gifted, it is
unrealistic to demand results in a short time span. The first time I recall seeing
my own set of six-pack abs came after 3 and ½ years of training. But if that was
a goal I had set from the start, it would have been a demotivating long wait to get
there.

My approach is not to think about how much you are lifting today, and not to be thinking
about how much you will be lifting tomorrow. It helps to not be affected by your own
performance, or worse, by the performance of another person working out at a higher intensity
than you. Remember, others are strong because they put in their dues. Over time, you
will be there too, but you need to stick to it first.

Personally, it flips traditional wisdom on its head, but I find goal setting a major
roadblock towards habit establishment. It puts you in a situation where you have to
wrestle with your fears and aspirations on a day-to-day basis. Even if you’d like to
do a little goal setting to chart your incremental progress, I’d say, skip that for now.

That’s because there will be days where there are negative gains. There will always be days
in which your performance is actually worse than before. It could be for any reason
– poor sleep, sickness, or sometimes, for no good reason at all. Knowing that dis-improvement
is normal, is important. When days like these come, do your best, but ignore the results.

Better yet, don’t measure yourself. Whether intentionally or not, by measuring, you are
allowing yourself to be affected by the results. It’s like telling you not to think about
the pink elephant. (You just did, didn’t you!)

There will come a time where measurement is important for progress. But it does not matter,
not at least until it you stick to it.

As new-age common wisdom popularised by Malcom Gladwell, 10000 repetitions
is the magic number of times one has to practice before he’s proficient
in a skill. Which obviously makes it strange to have chosen to practice 6000
punches and kicks over this year – that’s just barely above the halfway mark.

However, the answer is simple – it is reasonably achievable to attain this number
over the course of the year. By piggybacking on my existing gym routine, if I
am able to repeat last year’s attandence of 300 days, and if I am to practice
just 20 punches and 20 kicks a day, by calculations, I would naturally come up
to 6000 practices, give and take.

But does anybody truly believe that there is something magic about that 10000
number? Does it mean if you were to stop at 9999, it would have made you much
less accomplished just because you’ve missed that 1 last kick for the count?

Ironically, as I’ve noticed in the gym, people get so obsessed with wanting
to achieve quick results, to which after a few months, the vast majority will
simply quit. You got to ask, “is it worth over-taxing yourselves with goals
that are set with unreasonable expectations?”

Progress, not achievement, if there’s a secret to life that I’m able to
share with you.

I’ll still be better off being able to stick to my goals. Sure, completing
6000 punches and kicks wouldn’t make me Bruce Lee, but at least I should be
more accomplished than where I am today. And if I am able to stick to 6000
for a year, all it takes is another year to cross 10000.

This is my first post of the year! Not much to say yet, aside from that I’m
still in the process of setting up this new blog. The
old blog will stay as it is, so as not to mess up
any permalinks for other sites that was kindly linked to me.

I hope to keep writing all the way this year, and after a few years of absence,
let’s call it my resolution for 2014 then. Stay tuned!